Lies of Love

by Hannovah

  I began to feel a little peckish, so while Brandon was busy videotaping, I jostled through the crush of revelers and spectators, searching for a street vendor peddling delicacies.

  About fifteen minutes later, I returned with my goodies and took my seat. “I hope Yvette hasn’t passed by yet?”

  “Yes. Her band just came through.”

  “I’m so sorry I missed her. I’d altered her costume and wanted to see how it looked on her. Oh well.”

  “I got her on camera. Did you see Ashley?” Brandon hollered above the music.

  “No. Did you?”

  He nodded, “Ah-hah. She didn’t see me, but I got her good on video. Joshua would not approve. Or maybe he might. I don’t know with these young people.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He passed the camera to me and said, “Take a look.”

  I first saw Yvette in her green, yellow and black costume jumping in time to the music; and then I noticed Ashley who was the most outstanding person in her band, wining and misbehaving like if time was running out. No wonder Brandon spotted her.

  All the female masqueraders in her section wore a sexy two-piece costume. The bottom was a red string of a thong that was protected front and rear by large feathers painted red, white, and black. A red rectangular cloth with black and white tassels hung from each neck like a cape, and it was just big enough to cover the front of each red bra worn underneath. But Madam Ashley did her own thing. She wore the red micro thong, but her feathers were placed to the sides, on her hips, leaving little for the imagination. And she was bare breasted under the red cape, so that every time she raised her arms, she made all men happy. Brandon was one hell of a photographer, and a happy one too, I was sure. I smiled to myself and passed the camera back to him.

  I tried not to think about Joshua’s wife and her debatable ambitions. But as we watched the processions to the end, I couldn’t help but notice that Ms. Browning was the only woman in the jump-up that I had seen exposing herself to that extent.

  Josh had made a horrible choice for a wife.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Lord!

  I don’t know if it was because I had not engaged them on the first day we met or if it was just the nature of this campus, but this semester the students seemed dumber and lazier. As a result, I had been spending lots of hours redoing my power-points, handouts, and tests, and it was becoming very stressful.

  I was absorbed in retyping a test when I felt a colossal presence at my office door. I knew that Trevor was not that large or that bold; he always knocked. And besides, just by the pleasing fragrance that was wafting past my nose, I knew it could not be him. I looked up and sure enough, Dr. Joseph stood a couple feet away, observing me.

  “I heard that you had an incident in the lab the other day . . . calling in medics and everything,” he said.

  “Dr. Joseph. Hi. Yes-yes, I did.”

  “Have you heard from the students? How are they doing?” He stood in the doorway.

  “Yes, they’re fine. One was in class today and the other is at home recuperating. I’ve faxed her the notes and assignments.”

  “You’re a considerate and kind professor. You deserve to be treated to lunch.” I wanted to dissuade him, but he jumped the gun with “I’m absolutely sure you didn’t have lunch with your husband today.” He grinned as he said it, and as he leaned against my battered filing cabinet.

  I clasped my hands in my lap and said, “That’s unquestionably true.”

  He straightened up and, tossing his head to the doorway, said, “Well, come on. Let’s go. My treat.”

  “I’m sorry,” I sort of whined, “but I ate already.”

  “Hmmm?” He rolled his diamond greens at me, showing his disbelief.

  “Yeah, I bring left-over dinner with me every day.”

  He began scanning my surroundings for evidence, and smiled when he noticed an empty plastic container in a corner of my desk with a fork in it. “One day I’ll make it happen, Edna . . . one day.” The way he said it reminded me of the day he told me that the job was mine: like if it was a done deal; like if it was final.

  I only smiled, and when he left, I took a good inhale and continued with my work. Had he not been my boss, I would have asked him about his brand of cologne so I could purchase a bottle for Brandon. But I did not want to overstep my bounds or send the wrong message. And besides, Brandon’s aftershave smelled good too, though it was not as brisk. Or maybe I had just gotten used to it.

  No sooner had the dean left me that I heard the noise of a heavily laden cleaning cart rolling closer until it stopped next to my door. Trevor appeared with a spray bottle and a rag, and began to clean the door. We said hi, and he continued his work as I did mine. But when I took an eye-break from my computer, and grabbed the back of my neck to self-massage, he thought that this was his cue to engage in gossip.

  Placing his cloth and bottle in the cart, he remarked casually, “JJ Greeneyes comes by here a lot, don’t he?”

  “Who?” I asked, lowering my head and peering at him.

  “JJ Greeneyes – you know – Dean Joseph.”

  “Oh? That’s his alias?”

  “Since his college football days. Oh you didn’t know that?”

  I shook my head. Truth be told, I was clueless to the world of sports.

  Trevor stepped into my office and, leaning against one of my walls, he continued, “He’s a celebrity. Him played for Okeechobee University and then a few seasons in the NFL.” He smiled softly to add, “Me worshiped him when me was a kid. I grew up wanting to be just like him: one of the best quarterbacks ever.”

  My eyebrows rose involuntarily. “Really? I had no idea.” Getting used to the info, I asked, “So what’s he doing here?”

  “He got into a car accident and broke him leg and shoulder . . . like twenty-odd years ago . . . soon after him was drafted. So he couldn’t play no more. Them say that he gambled away some of his money, and bought big house and fancy cars for women. Him must have studied too . . . I don’t know. I understand, he’s been a dean here . . . ten, twelve years now . . . before me got here.”

  “Oh?” I marveled at all the 4-1-1.

  Trevor inched forward, “Me curious . . . what was he doing here?”

  What? This janitor is becoming too close. And besides, I would never tell him anything because he is such a gossiper. I responded, “I think he’s making his rounds; checking on all of his faculty.”

  “Not all,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “Just you, Dr. Rayburn.”

  “What?” I frowned and smiled simultaneously.

  “Him come straight here. Him never stops at any other professor door. I’ve noticed that.”

  I swallowed a few times to dissolve a lump that had suddenly appeared in my throat, and I blinked rapidly, trying to come up with another explanation for Dean Joseph’s visits.

  But Trevor continued, “Me see students trying to get his autograph, and the young girls them flirting and trying to get with him. When he was a big-time quarterback, women swamped him and, of course, there was a few rape charges against him that got dismissed. His lawyers always came through for him.”

  “Hmmm,” I said, not totally surprised. “No charges since then?”

  “A few accusations here and there, but somehow them all fade away.”

  “Ah-hah.”

  “He’s a good looking man, and him gets more than his fair share of women. Me love the opposite sex mih-self, but I tell you, if my wife worked where I worked, I’d behave.”

  My head jerked backwards at the word wife.

  “Oh you don’t know? She working here – a nice, quiet, churchy woman – tall and slim just like you. Works upstairs in ah the library. Mentors the Students Christian Fellowship.”

  “I didn’t know that.” I had never seen a ring on the man’s finger, so I asked, “His current wife?”

  Trevor nodded. “Him only been married once. But that makes no difference to him. He’s all about t
he skirt-tails. And the wife seems okay with it.” He lowered his voice, “Be careful with him.”

  I brushed away his advice with my hand and said, “Don’t worry. I’m happily married. I have no interest in the dean what-so-everrr.”

  “Yeah. But he definitely has in you.” With that remark, Trevor left.

  I sat there taking long blinks. Jamus Joseph. A celebrity athlete– wow! Wait till I tell Brandon. I better not. Brandon had a suspicious side; he didn’t trust any man, not even the Pope. “A man is a man,” he says. But was the dean seriously interested in me? I was definitely no young hottie. I was old. I looked alright for forty-eight – with a few curves working for me – but I no longer turned as many heads as I had done twenty years ago. Brandon, bless his heart, made me feel good about myself, but I knew that it was out of duty.

  I filled my lungs to regroup and complete my task, and before leaving the campus, I hiked up to the fourth floor of my building where the library was housed. The only other time I had visited this facility was early in the semester to drop off copies of my texts and their corresponding DVD’s, but I just had to see what Ms. Joseph looked like. Sauntering through the rows of books, I glanced over at the circulation counter and the reserve desks, looking for a tall slim lady. Most of the workers in there were female, and some appeared slim, but I couldn’t determine their heights because they were all seated. And another thing: What race was she? What age was she? Trevor had omitted these important tid-bits. An idea suddenly hit me: Read their name tags. So, nonchalantly, I strolled past the long counter and the few desks, and browsed their I.D’s, but unfortunately, no tags bore the last name of Joseph. I concluded that she must have been in the back somewhere or out of the office or had not taken his name.

  Realizing that I had just wasted fifteen minutes of my busy life, I sucked my teeth and reprimanded myself: What’s it to you, Edna Bergail Rayburn? You’re just too damn nosey. I could hear Brandon seconding the motion too.

  Leaving the library, I ran into Jennifer Alvarez, the new Speech Professor.

  “Hi. How are you?” I asked as we stopped on the balcony.

  “Fine,” she answered.

  “I never see you. Where’s your office?”

  “On the third floor.”

  Of course. All the Arts professors’ offices were on the third floor. “I’m on the second floor,” I volunteered, “with the math and science faculty.”

  She said nothing, but nervously tucked her rich black hair behind her ears.

  I waited a few uncomfortable moments and then, trying to engage her, I asked, “How do you like it here?”

  “It’s okay . . .,” she batted her eyes, “. . . I guess.”

  “Everything alright?”

  “Um-hmmm,” she nodded unconvincingly.

  Well I really was not interested in beating a dead horse, so I said, “Alright, see you around.”

  “Wait,” she said, grasping my left arm weakly. “Are you serving on any committees?”

  “Not at the moment. Are you?”

  With hurt and protest plastered all over her face, she answered, “I’ve been put on several.”

  Jennifer appeared so overwhelmed that I thought I needed to explain my situation. I said, “I just started here at North, but I’ve been at the university for over fourteen years; I’ve paid my dues, serving on every committee possible. But as new faculty, you have to prove your worth, and are expected to answer yes to everything.”

  She looked to the ceiling and her eyes welled up, so I placed my hand on the poor thing’s shoulder and said, “Only until you’re tenured.”

  She nodded humbly, smiled, and walked away, and I realized right then and there that the world of academia was not for everyone.

  I felt her pain; the higher-ups were taking mean advantage of her. If we professors were allowed to do what we were hired to do, and not be burdened with administrative tasks (which are not our forte and which we were not hired for) life would be so much better. But nahhh! That would be too easy, wouldn’t it? We are not supposed to have it easy. I hope Jennifer makes it.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Someone was banging on our back door.

  I knew it was the Brownings. They probably wanted to hang out by the pool and just wanted to let us know, so I got up from my state of relaxation in front of the TV in the den, and opened up the door. Joshua stood outside, and he was as angry as a man who wanted to do something but couldn’t. I poked my head outside to look for Ashley, and not seeing her, I stretched my neck a little more towards their villa. The lights were on, but that was all that I noticed.

  “That’s it!” he said, as he barged right in. “I’m done with that woman.”

  “What?” I had heard them quarreling before, since their abode was just a stone’s throw away from ours. And now that I think about it, they had been going at it regularly and were getting louder every week. But they always seemed to patch things up. I followed him as he searched for and found Brandon, who had been meddling with a new cell phone, in the living room.

  Joshua took a seat hurriedly on the floor.

  “That girl just hit me in the back of my head with a text book.”

  “Really?” I said, sitting next to my husband as he closed his new toy, and tried not to laugh at Joshua’s predicament.

  “Yeah. Every time she gets angry she pelts whatever she could lay her hands on, and I always have to duck or jump out of the way. Well I said to myself, ‘Today-today, I want to see if she will really hit me for true.’ I tell you, when that book hit me in the back of my head, I turned around and grabbed her. I held her down on the bed, and some type of violence was taking me over, so before I ended up doing something I would regret, I said to myself, ‘leave the house.’ So I went for a drive and I just came back.”

  “You’re right son, prevention is better than cure,” Brandon said.

  Joshua sucked his teeth. “We argue about silly things, and while I could compromise and put it away for peace sake, Ashley can’t.”

  “Ah-hah?”

  “We are from two different places. You know, I’m from a big family that is peaceful and quiet, and tries to get along.”

  “Not Ashley?”

  “No sir! She’s from a small, warlike family.”

  “Hmmm. Like oil and water,” Brandon offered, trying not to say too much.

  “She has a real anger problem. She should be taking Anger Management classes.”

  “That bad, ah?”

  “You don’t know. Whenever she gets in a rage, she is mad like hell!”

  “When I agreed for you guys to live here,” Brandon exhaled heavily, “I didn’t know she was like that.”

  Joshua vented more. “Sometimes she would pack up her stuff, jump in her truck and start driving to Daytona. Then midway on the I-Ninety Five, she would cool off and call me, saying that she loves me and she’s coming back.”

  “At least you reconcile as good couples do,” Brandon said.

  “But we’re fighting too often. She has left and come back at least five times already, and we are only married three months.” Joshua lifted his hands towards heaven. “I don’t know how much more of this I could take.”

  I had no idea that all of this was happening right in our own backyard.

  “So what you’re going to do?”

  “I told her that I want a divorce.”

  Brandon scratched his bald head. “Listen, before you go to divorce . . . don’t you think that she needs help . . . like medical help?”

  “It’s possible. She used to take a prescription when she was a teen. And the more I live with her, the more I feel that she’s not normal . . . something is wrong.”

  Then there was a knock at our front door. It was Ashley. Brandon and I greeted her warmly, but Joshua hardly looked in her direction as she walked in, calm and relaxed, with a black suitcase in one hand and a small towel in the other. “I’m sorry honey,” she said, dropping the suitcase to blot her tears. “Can we talk?” />
  Joshua ignored her, but Brandon said, “That’s a good idea,” and dragged a reluctant me away to the office. He sat at his desk, but I inched back closer to the door to listen in. Brandon rolled his eyes at me, but I didn’t care.

  “I’ll stop the stripping,” she sobbed.

  Again, I didn’t even know that she had started back.

  “The stripping don’t bother me,” Joshua said. “Strip if you want.”

  “And I’ll start cleaning the apartment and helping out more,” her voice trembled.

  “Whatever.” Joshua was still angry, it sounded like.

  “I’m back to stay honey I’m going to unpack my stuff I love you.”

  Then I heard the front door open and close. Immediately, I pulled Brandon off his chair and we rejoined Joshua, where I allowed the distraught young man to give us the gist of their conversation.

  I said afterwards, “It’s good that she wants to make these changes, Josh.”

  “That is a joke!” he laughed, hopping to his feet. “She can’t stop stripping – it’s in her blood! She doesn’t clean – she dirties!” He paced back and forth. “And laundry? Hah! That’s a laugh too! She re-wears the same dirty underwear if I cannot get it washed in time.” He stopped his pacing and leaned against a wall, shaking his head ruefully. “I don’t know if I’m still in love with that woman.”

  Brandon asked, “What about the bedroom Olympics?”

  “I don’t even want to have sex with her anymore. She comes home drunk from work every night and when –”

  I jumped in, “Drunk? From work? Why?”

  “Well, I didn’t tell you, but she went back to stripping at a partial-nude club, and the customers there keep buying drinks for the working girls, hoping that they would get drunk and do more than just strip to partial . . . or just do more.”

  “Oh! Oh!” My eyes blinked beyond my control. “I didn’t know it was like that.” This professor was getting an education here.

  “After grinding and lap dancing all night, she comes home horny and tries to get with me.” He seemed disgusted as he spoke. “I can’t function like that. And that’s another thing that we argue about.”